


The Tough Get Going

by icarus_chained



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012), The Last Unicorn (1982)
Genre: Courage, Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hope, Magic, Magical Accidents, Pain, Pride, Prompt Fic, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:24:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a few years after waking up from the ice, Jack Frost has a magical encounter he sorely needed. The magic does as it will, after all. For a prompt that wanted Jack Frost and Molly Grue. </p><p>ETA: Chapter 2 has the magic drop Molly down once more, after the events of RotG, to see Jack with the Guardians.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-movie for RotG, post-movie for Last Unicorn. The prompt was: "Molly (post Last Unicorn) and Jack Frost (post his death at the start of RotG) being friends makes perfect emotional sense to me, even though their worlds don't mesh very well." *smiles* It made perfect emotional sense to me too.

He was playing with the snow when she arrived, playing with ice and air and the limits of what he was, trying to forget the villages and what he'd found there. He'd been spinning furious and delighted circles around his pond, throwing energy around with sheer abandon just to see what it would do, dancing up a small blizzard in the process and defiantly not caring. What did it matter, anyway? He was the only one around to see.

Until, that was, a barefooted woman appeared out of the center of his swirling mass of snow, flailing furiously in the air and screeching " _Schmendrick!_ " at the top of her not-inconsiderable lungs.

That ... wasn't what usually happened?

Jack stumbled, tripping and landing nose-first on the ice, and as his attention broke so did the power he'd been pouring into the blizzard. The snow and the wind fled instantly, muttering imprecations as they went, and the strange woman was unceremoniously dropped behind them, hitting the ice with an outraged howl and a spate of such language that the wind almost paused and came back, it was so impressed with her.

Jack, for his part, was pretty content just to stare at her in amazement. He lay prone on the ice, one hand cupped to his aching nose, and watched as she shoved a snarled handful of hair out of her face, planted her hands determinedly on the ground, and shoved herself back to sitting. She winced, the kind of wince Jack recognised from falling on his own behind a time or two, and growled savagely to herself.

"Oh, I'm going to kill him," she muttered, staggering to her feet and pressing a hand to the small of her back, curling her toes against the cold of the ice. "When I catch up to that man, I swear, I am going to _kill him_."

"... Um?" Jack tried. More out of bemused amusement than any expectation that she'd _hear_ him. He'd been broken of that hope for a while now. But she ...

She _did_. She did hear him. She spun around with a yelp, dark eyes scanning the ice until she found him, until she _looked_ at him, one hand raising itself in a surprisingly capable-looking fist. Not that Jack cared about that, not that he would have cared if she'd been pointing a _sword_ at him, the point was ... she'd _heard_ him. She'd ... she'd really heard him.

"Who are you!" she snapped, bending her knees and raising her arms defiantly. An odd expression flickering over her, as she registered him properly, as she looked at him stunned and prone on the ice. Something that might have been sympathy, that hardened quickly back into suspicion. "Out with it! Who are you, boy?"

Jack blinked. He opened his mouth and tried, honestly _tried_ , to answer her. But nothing came out. He opened his mouth soundlessly, opened and closed it like one of the marionettes he'd seen in one of the villages, but ... nothing. Not a sound. The first person to talk to him in ... in however long he'd been here, however long he'd been like this, and he couldn't say anything. He couldn't ... couldn't make the words come out. 

He snapped his mouth shut, anger and pain and sudden, thick despair clawing through him and then, in a fit of sudden frustration, thumped his hand against the ice, dropped his head down after it. The ice cracked obligingly, froze back around his face as though cradling it, and Jack whimpered softly into its embrace.

Maybe this was why the Moon never answered him. Maybe this was why no-one could see him. Because he was too _pathetic_.

There was a pause, a moment of pained stillness and the hollow comfort of the ice, and then ... Then something touched him, then a hand touched softly at his shoulder, and Jack _flinched_ , his head snapping back up in a crunch of broken ice, and the woman hastily swayed back from him. Not far. Not running. But enough to give him space, and raise her hands placatingly.

"I'm sorry," she said, gently. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I didn't know you couldn't talk."

Jack blinked at her, his tears like a film of frost crystals across his vision, and shook his head. Her hand had been ... very warm, he thought. It had been ... nice.

"... I," he tried. Stumbled, forcing it through. "No, I. I can?" He shook his head angrily, made himself look back at her. Made himself look up and meet her eyes, warm and patient on him. "I can talk. But I ... No-one can _see_ me. No-one can hear me. So I ..."

She blinked, sitting back on her haunches while she considered that, staring down at him in some bemusement. "No-one can see you?" she repeated, blankly. And then frowned, her eyes narrowing into a sudden fierce stare, and looked him up and down, swept the length of him with a look more intense than anything Jack had ... well. Than anything within his memory.

Unbidden, he found himself flushing a little bit.

"You're not a unicorn, are you?" the woman demanded suddenly. Putting her fists on her hips when Jack just stared blankly. "Please, tell me you're not a unicorn. I've had enough of that, I'm telling you. I'm not showing you how to love. And I'm _not_ saving you from any Red Bull. Honestly, it was hard enough the first time, if that bloody man and his thrice-blasted magic managed to send me to some other world to put another unicorn back together, I'll ... I'll ..."

"Um?" Jack interrupted. Cautiously. "I don't _think_ I'm a unicorn?" He shrugged uneasily, taking the opportunity to scamper up into a sitting position, so he could meet her warm, half-angry gaze on a more-or-less equal footing. "Ah. Wouldn't I notice the ... the being a horse, and having a horn, and things?"

He gestured to his forehead, drawing an imaginary horn out from it, and the woman deflated, her shoulders slumping as she brought one palm up to cover her face and sigh tiredly. 

"Not necessarily," she said, shaking her head lightly as she dropped her hand to smile at him. "If you were turned into a human, you mightn't remember being the other way." She shrugged, a shadow of pain flickering over her. "I've seen it. It's ... It's not pretty. She almost lost herself. Almost became human, forgetting everything." She paused, and smiled faintly. A crooked twitch of her mouth. "Though she found love. There was that, at least."

Jack ... Jack tried a smile himself, about as crooked. "That doesn't sound so bad," he said quietly, his arms coming up to hug against himself before he could think. "Becoming human? That ... that doesn't sound bad."

She looked at him, then. Understanding, maybe? Jack thought so, anyway. Something knowing and fierce, looking right at him. It was blistering. It was the warmest thing he'd felt since the Moon had raised him from the darkness.

"... You're not a unicorn, are you?" she asked, very quietly. Warm and worn, and Jack shook his head. Smiled his best smile, lopsided and with all the confidence he could muster. 

"I don't think so," he said, looking down at the ice. Trailing one pale hand along it, watching the sweep of crystals in its wake. "I'm ... I don't know what I am. I thought I might be a ghost? People walk through me. They don't see me. And I'm cold. So I ... I thought I might be a ghost. I don't remember ghosts being able to do what I can do, with the ice and the snow, but ... And you touched me, can people touch ghosts?" He glanced back up, almost flinched from the gentleness in her expression. "Why can you touch me? Why can you _see_ me?"

She pressed her lips together, shaking her head against what looked like pain, and reached out to him. Jack didn't flinch, he made himself not flinch, he stayed perfectly still as she touched her fingers lightly against his cheeks and then, gently, cupped his face. Carefully, in hands that were worn and old and a bit gnarled, like old wood but ... soft. So much softer. 

"Probably for the same reason I can see unicorns," she explained softly. "And maybe because this isn't my world. I don't think it's my world. My husband, drat him. He's a wizard, you see. Sometimes not a very good one. The magic sent me somewhere." She tipped his chin up, smiled gently down at him. "To where I was needed, probably. I think ... the magic sent me to where I might be needed?"

Jack felt his breath hitch in his chest. He shook his head, the film of frost creeping back across his eyes, his chest heavy and numb. When he opened his mouth, nothing came out. Again, nothing came.

"Shh," she said. This warm, strange woman who had appeared out of the snow. With her worn hands and her talks of unicorns and magic, with her warmth and her sympathy and the strength of her belief. "Shh," she said, and bundled him close against her. Ignoring his cold, ignoring the chill that had to be sweeping through her at his touch. Guiding his head down to her shoulder, and holding him tight against the shudders that swept through him and the soundless, hollow sobs.

"It's alright," she whispered, rocking him gently. "Shh. I know. It's alright. I see you. It will be all right."

Jack cried. A horrible, twisted sound, tearing up out of him. Ugly, so ugly, but she didn't flinch. Not for one second. Every harsh, stabbing sound that tore from his chest, she just held him past it. The pair of them hunched in a puddle of skirts and limbs on the ice, her bare feet slowly turning as pale as his. And she didn't let go. And she didn't flinch.

"... I wanted to see a unicorn," she told him, when the sobs had died down. When the harsh retching had subsided, enough for him to listen to her. Enough for him to rest his head against her chest and listen. "When I was young. I wanted _so much_. So I ran away, and I married a bad man, a cruel, petty man, because I let my dreams blind me to reality. But ... even then. Even after so many years, and all the disappointments of that life. I never stopped wanting. A unicorn. A perfect, beautiful thing, who would see me, and know me for what I was. I ... never managed to stop hoping."

Jack clenched his hands, knotted them in the heavy wool of her shirt, pressing his face into her chest. Feeling the knot of pain and hope and despair pressing against his own ribs, trying not to let it out.

"... What happened?" he asked. With a crack in his voice, like ice about to break, but stronger than he'd expected. Strong enough that he was almost amazed. He felt her turn her head. Felt the warmth of her chin against his hair. She was smiling, he thought, though he didn't dare look to check.

"One came," she said, soft and laughing. "My very own unicorn. She came to me, and I _yelled_ at her." Jack started at that, pulled his head back to stare up at her, and she grinned, hard and fierce and delighted. "Oh yes. She was late, you see. She was very late. And I was very tired, and I was ragged and worn and not even beautiful anymore. Of _course_ I yelled at her for it. Why wouldn't I?"

Jack blinked. Shook his head, because ... well. How did you answer that? She smiled, but took pity on him.

"You mustn't give up hope," she said, stern and gentle and warm, reaching up to brush the flakes of frost from his eyes. "You live with what you're given, and you never give up hope, and you work through whatever happens to you. You keep your dreams. But, when one shows up?" She smiled, crooked and fierce and pained. "When they come, after everything you've been through and all the times you almost gave up? You can _yell_ at them. You can get mad. You just make sure to forgive them afterwards, because it might not have been their fault. But for that first moment, when they appear? You get to be angry. You get to be upset. Because you'll want to, and you'll need to, and I promise you, you will be right. It will be alright."

Jack bit his lip. Struggled, for a second, struggled with the silence and the pain and the weight inside his chest, with all the years of silence. He reached out, catching her hand as she reached back willingly, tangled his fingers through hers. Held on, with more strength than was maybe fair. She grinned at him, wild and fierce where she crouched frozen on his pond, and for a second Jack didn't care what she'd said. He didn't care what the unicorn might have thought. She was, just for that moment, the most beautiful person he'd ever seen.

"What's your name?" he asked, hoarsely. Feeling the wind pick up, feeling it swirling back around them with a voice full of unfamiliar mutterings. He could feel the magic, the thing she'd said had brought her here, he could feel something snatching at them. Already, he could feel her start to leave, and couldn't help but tighten his fingers about hers, couldn't help but try to hold on. "Who are you? What's your name?"

She smiled, bright and fierce and delighted. "Molly," she said. Called, really, over the rising howl of the wind. "Molly Grue!"

"Jack!" he cried back, as the wind started to tug at her, as it pulled her up and away from him, out across the ice. He staggered to his feet, stumbled after her. "I'm Jack Frost!" He laughed suddenly, a bubble of something unnameable and fiercely bright bursting in his chest. "The Moon told me! I'm Jack Frost!"

She grinned at him, her hands fighting to keep the snarl of her hair from her face as she was tumbled up into the air, hissing under her breath at Schmendrick, whoever he was. But she grinned at him, yanking a hand down long enough to wave at him. 

"Then good luck to you, Jack Frost!" She cursed viciously, managed to upright herself for the second she needed. "And don't forget! No matter what happens, don't ---"

And then she was gone. The wind collapsed into itself, the snow and the howl crumpling into the space where she'd been, falling silent in stunned, grumbling shock, and she was gone. Jack staggered to a stop, his feet bare and frozen on the ice, and for a second he let his smile slip away, for a second he couldn't hold it, staring into the space where she had been, the first and only person to ever see him.

But then ... Then he remembered. Then he didn't forget, the things she'd said to him, the last thing she'd said. He remembered, he wouldn't forget, he would keep it as long as he still had memory.

Not to give up hope. Not to forget. And to yell at his dreams if he wanted to.

Jack turned, then. Away from the empty patch of ice where she had been. Looking out, looking up, all the way up into the sky, to the ghostly whiteness where the Moon shone through the clouds. Jack turned, and looked, and spread his arms wide across the ice, and his grin wide and fierce across his face.

"I'm _Jack Frost_!" he whooped, letting it echo, letting it thrill. "And you know what? I'm _not giving up_. So there!"

And he might have imagined it, maybe he imagined it, but he thought the Moon shone brighter, just for a second. He thought the Moon, who had never answered him before and maybe never would again, might have whooped silently along with him. 

He grinned, spinning on the ice, frost flowers spiraling out around him. That was right, wasn't it. That was true, and he wouldn't forget it again. He was Jack Frost, and someone had touched him, and he wasn't giving up. Not now. And not ever. 

Alright. Now. Let's have a little _fun_!


	2. Got Across That River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone asked me for a second part, where Molly comes back after RotG and sees Jack with the Guardians. And hey, why not, hmm?

For the first few moments as Schmendrick's magic died around her once more, leaving her stranded who-knows-where among who-knows-who, Molly had considered being nervous. Standing in the center of a dark room, surrounded by several equally-startled and rather aggressive-looking beings, she'd wondered if she ought to be a little alarmed.

Not afraid, you understand. She couldn't be having with that. But nervous, yes.

But then there had been a cry, " _Molly!_ ", sharp and shocked and joyful, and a small, lithe figure had slammed into her and wrapped skinny arms around her, clinging with all the strength of a child, and she'd gotten distracted from the hulking figures of the swordsman and the six-foot rabbit and the green-feathered fairy and the baby sun. Which probably oughtn't to be something you could do, really, but then Jack was rather special.

"Molly! You're _here_! You came back!"

He looked up at her, half-flying as the wind held him in the air, his arms still close around her, and Molly smiled at him helplessly. It had only been a few hours for her, a bizarre series of misadventures while Schmendrick tried everything he knew to pull her closer to home, but goodness alone knew how long it had been for Jack.

Goodness knew how long he'd lived with only the memory of one stranger's hug to pull him through.

"Hello, Jack," she murmured, soft and warm, and reached up to wrap her own arms around his shoulders. "You remembered me, then, did you?"

He grinned at her, a child's smile beneath ancient eyes, and heavens help her, it was like Amalthea all over again. The expansive, instinctive love of a child, in the still, silent breast of an immortal. No wonder she had thought he might be a unicorn.

"I promised I would," he agreed, bright and earnest, leaning against her. "Well. Maybe you didn't hear that part. But I did promise." A tiny wobble in his smile, a tiny tremble. "I remembered. I wanted to remember."

Her breath hitched, an ache in her chest, and she knew then that it had been a long time for him. From that fragile moment of pain, she knew it must have been a great deal of time since last someone had held him close.

And my, did that thought make her _angry_.

"... Jack?" One the surrounding figures, the swordsman, moved cautiously forward. Molly found herself shifting instinctively, trying to put herself between him and Jack. For some strange reason, the great bearded lout smiled at her for it. "Jack, you are knowing this woman? She is friend of yours?"

Molly snorted angrily, ready to give the man a piece of her mind, but Jack pre-empted her, darting back from her with a sly turn to his grin and flitting forward to hover in the air between the strangers and her. He winked at her as he passed, the irrepressible mischief and joy that she suspected was his deepest nature.

"North, guys, this is Molly," he said, turning in the air to include them in his grin. "She saved me once, when I was just starting out. She ..." He paused, thought about it, and when he looked back at them there was knowing in his eyes, sad and solemn, and he was looking at the rabbit in particular. "She gave me hope when I needed it. You know?"

They flinched a little, the four of them to a being, and Molly felt the stir of suspicion, of understanding, rise inside her. She frowned, looking at them carefully, and then stepped forward to stand beneath Jack, crossing her arms beneath his hovering form.

"Don't tell me," she said slowly, glaring around at them. "These people ... they're your unicorns, Jack? Your dream?"

He spun, a bright, pale figure in the light from the dome, and spread his arms in soft, glowing joy, in the expansive love of a dream fulfilled after all life's hardships. He hung in the air before her, more the immortal now than the lonely, heartbroken child, and the four of them stood like supporting shadows beneath him.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, smiling down at them. "Yeah, they kind of are."

Then the smile changed, grew sly and a little wicked, a smile not for them but for _her_ , and he flew down to rest beside Molly, all cold air and cocky charm, and slipped his arm through hers.

"And you know what?" he told her, smiling like the child he was at heart while the others stared and Molly herself looked askance at him. "You know what I did when I first met them?" 

He grinned, shy and happy, sharing a secret between them, and suddenly she knew what he was going to say. She knew before he ever opened his mouth, and the thought spread enough warmth through her that all the frozen cold of his touch could never dent it again.

"Yeah," Jack said, seeing her knowledge in her eyes, in the small, fierce smile she gifted to him. "I remembered," he told her quietly. Proudly, with a lift of his chin and all the strength his wiry spirit contained. "I remembered what you told me. And when they came to me, I _yelled_ at them." He smiled, soft and crooked. "I yelled at them, and it helped, and it ... it all turned out right in the end."

And they didn't get it, his unicorns, not a one of them understood what he was saying with that, the years of pain and struggle and hope he laid bare in those words, but Molly did. She knew, she understood, and she _loved_. As instantly and fiercely as she had loved her unicorn, as she had loved her husband, as she had loved the young, foolish prince who'd fallen for a creature he could never hope to keep. Jack smiled at her, while she reached out and pulled him desperately to her chest, and in that moment Molly had never loved him more.

"Good for you," she whispered, ragged and fierce while he pressed a cold nose into her chest and tangled his fingers in her shirt. "Jack, my boy. _Good for you_."

And if she left him hiccuping behind her when the magic snatched her again, if she left him smiling lopsidedly with all his joy and his pain in his eyes while his new friends gathered close around him, well.

Her own eyes, when Schmendrick finally caught her in his arms, weren't very dry either.

And that, she thought, was all right too.


End file.
